Yes yes, I’m quite aware of how long it’s been, no need to point it out thank-you-very-much…

Hello, how’ve you been? I’ve been rather quiet. Not much scribbling, but lots of reading. Well, audiobooking – lighter than lugging around a hard copy, and as I do a lot of travelling with minimal baggage, weight is an issue. Not my weight, my bag’s weight. Although my weight is a bit of an issue too at the moment – I’m developing a train-belly, which is rather worrying. Caused by the inability to resist buying biscuits, muffins and crisps to nosh while I’m working on my train. I offset the guilt by also buying grapes & other fruit, but it’s becoming rather obvious that I need to cut down on the cheeky stuff. My aunt couldn’t have put it better… “Oooh, you’ve put on weight haven’t you? Must be down to sitting on that train all day eating.” But how did she know about the eating?!

Anyway, I’ve digressed… Audiobooks. For some reason I’ve become rather addicted to crime fiction. It started with Jo Nesbo, and I’ve worked my through every available audiobook (unabridged unless only abridged versions are available) from 12 more crime fiction authors since. Yup, I do a lot of travelling… There’ve been ups and downs – beloved main characters killed off, disappointing plots, twists that make you go “Ooooh!” and a fair few chuckles. But the best chuckle to date was a totally enexpected naughty word in a little sentence spoken by DS Hackman in “The Naming of the Dead” by Ian Rankin. I’d read a couple of Rebus books donkeys years ago, and remember the series with John (phwoor) Hannah from telly, but it wasn’t until I saw an excellent documentary following the author through the process of writing a new novel that I decided to work my way through all his Rebus books. I was also interested to see if I could recognise his development as a writer (the answer to that is yes – very, very interesting to witness!).

Hang on, lost my thread…

Ah yes. Are you ready? Here’s the line that caused me to do one of those spluttery-snorty-snonky-belly-chuckles. You know the sort – the ones that pounce on you without warning, usually when you’re sitting in a packed train carriage surrounded by po-faced commuters…